The joke wasn’t comforting. But nothing could really comfort Neha right now, could it? Not when she had to reckon with both Joe’s true nature and her own. She tried the back door of the fancy utility vehicle, surprised to find it unlocked, and tumbled out before anyone could tell her not to. She sucked in great big lungfuls of cold night air and reveled in the chill on her bare arms and legs. Because she was burning up inside. Burning with confusion and shame and fear and guilt. And none of it would matter if Joe went and got himself killed. Everything she’d done, everything she felt would be completely meaningless. The last thing Neha wanted was to have loved in vain.
“Fuck.” She swore first in English and then Punjabi, turning to stare at the playground equipment instead of at the three people spilling out of the car after her. Three people who’d risked their lives for her. She was so selfish. The antithesis of her Sikh upbringing and the lessons she’d been taught. Meditate on the divine, work hard, and share with others. Perhaps her parents had been too lax with their children when it came to respecting those tenets. Because she’d chosen the devil over the divine, abandoned her job, and…and what had she shared with others besides pain and peril?
Neha was thankful—hopeful—when the sound of a motorcycle brought her spiral of self-recriminations to a halt. The engine wouldn’t have been particularly loud on the average city street, but here, in the quiet dark, it sounded like the rumble of thunder…and Finn Conlan rode the storm right onto the grass with lightning on his back. Joe. He leapt off the bike like he was still the wolf, swift and graceful and dangerous…and he stalked toward her with such intensity that she felt Nate close in on one side of her. As if a human lawyer who’d spent his twenties devoted to GTL and his thirties and forties devoted to G&Ts could be any match for an angry shape-shifter wearing nothing but leather, ill-fitting pants, and a whole rack of muscles. Sweet, but so misguided.
So she wasn’t prepared when Joe turned to him instead of her. When he snapped off “What’s she doing here?” in the tersest of tones.
The words were like a slap back in time. To the very first day they’d met. A rude question asked about her instead of to her. Like she wasn’t right there, worthy of being recognized, fully capable of speaking for herself. Neha stumbled back a step, teetering on her borrowed high heels as the breath rushed out of her chest in a whoosh. The fog she’d been in since they’d left the club was gone now. Replaced by sharp clarity. Joe was covered in cuts and bruises. Jagged claw marks across his bare chest still oozed with blood. But it was his eyes that had sustained the most damage. They were blank. Utterly devoid of warmth. “Joe…”
He ignored her, barreling on as his cold gaze swung like a lighthouse beam over Nate, Grace, Finn, and the man whose name she didn’t yet know. “She was supposed to be safe,” he rasped. “How the fuck is standing out here in the open safe? What the hell is wrong with you people? You’re supposed to be skilled operatives.”
Grace didn’t even blink at the tirade. Probably her nerves of surgeon steel. “We are. That’s why leading potential tails right back to our headquarters would be the weakest possible move. We regroup here. Neutralize any threats off-site. Then we close it up. If you don’t like how we do things, Mr. Peluso, you’re free to go back to Kamchatka’s guest room.”
The “guest room.” That dark, dank space—not that much bigger than his jail cell—where Neha and Joe had held each other close, tasted each other’s tears. Neha willed Joe to acknowledge her. To turn and face her, see her, like he had in that claustrophobic box. When that didn’t work, she used her words. “I can take care of myself. You know I can take care of myself. So, what’s this really about?” she demanded. “Why can’t you look at me right now?”
His fists curled. His posture stiffened. And his head dropped along with his voice. “How can you look at me at all?”
That was easy. Because she’d never shied away. Even when he wore a prison-issue jumpsuit and handcuffs. Neha gave into the impulse that had been eating at her since he and Finn rode up. She went to him, slipping her arms around him, hugging him tight. Assuring herself that he was okay, here and with her and solid, albeit a little bit more battered than before. His hands stayed fisted. He didn’t move to return the embrace. “Joe, let me in,” she urged, swallowing the hurt, trying to be strong and calm and logical. “Don’t shut me out.”
But that was just what he did. Reaching up to grasp her shoulders…not to pull her close but to put inches between them. “I’m filthy with blood,” he growled…genuinely a growl, like he hadn’t quite shifted back to his full human form. “And not all of it’s mine. You want that all over you? Do you want to taste it on my tongue? Because I don’t think you do, Neha. I don’t think you want to know what skin and bone feel like against your teeth. You saw me tear in. You saw me dig into the meat. It’s not steak tartare, babe.”
He was trying to disgust her, trying to scare her. Neha fought the queasiness his words evoked, and she fought Joe, too. Shoving at his chest, uncaring if her hands were stained red in the process. “Stop it. Stop. Don’t act like I didn’t already know who you were. Like I wasn’t in your arms just hours before you stepped into that cage. I came with you knowing you’d taken six lives. You really think watching you take a seventh is going to send me running for the hills?”
“Seven? You think it’s seven?” He laughed, turning to look at the Third Shift operatives. “These guys probably know. Bet they’ve seen the real records. I’ve killed hundreds, Neha. With bullets, with bombs, with fangs and claws. Boys barely old enough to shave. Insurgents who were fighting back after we fucked up their countries. People who looked like your uncles and your brothers. There is so much blood on my hands, and most of it didn’t need to be there. But I chose this life. I made my own damn bed. You don’t have to be in it with me.”
They’d had this fight before. Back at the rental in Jackson Heights. Then they’d skirted around it at Kamchatka. Somehow, having it here, in the fresh night air with witnesses, made it a thousand times more painful. Because they couldn’t fuck away the harsh truths, couldn’t kiss the wounds better.
Fortunately, Neha wasn’t exactly in the mood to kiss and fuck. No. She drew in a steadying breath, clenching her own fists in a parody of his, and tried to quell the ache his words had caused. He’d dealt her more than one low blow, but she’d be damned if she let him see how hard they’d landed. “You tried this already. Shutting me out. Pushing me away for my own good. And remember how well that worked?” He’d held her and cried against her neck. They’d almost said things it was too soon to say. “So, spare me your new bout of self-loathing man pain, Joe.”
There was a choked laugh and a muffled “man pain?” from Finn at that, reminding her again that Joe was playing out this scene with an audience. The flush of humiliation hit her hard and fast. “I ran off with you without a single thought to my job, my family, my whole life. And I risked all of that again tonight to get you away from that club. And this is how you respond? By condescending to me in front of the operatives who helped? By throwing it in my face that you’ve killed people with brown skin?” As if she didn’t already know that. As if that wasn’t something she had to reckon with constantly, thanks to American patriotism and world-policing. “That’s bullshit. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to use who I am to ease your conscience and hurt me at the same time.”
It was like she hadn’t spoken, hadn’t just worked up ridiculous amounts of nerve to call him out. Because Joe just shook his head, eyes blazing with emotion. “Goddammit! Why aren’t you afraid of me? You should be! Take this fucking exit. Make these people get you as far away from me as possible!”
Neha felt Nate’s hand on her shoulder. Still unnecessary…but, right now, totally appreciated. Her knees were wobbly, and rage tears—not sadness, not hurt, dammit—were flooding her eyes. How fucked up was it that this man who’d wooed her by wanting to hold her close now wanted nothing m
ore than to put distance between them? He’d hedged it the first few times, in the alley and then again in Queens—couched it in hypotheticals. But there was no mistaking him now, no wiggle room, no blaming it on the dangers outside. He meant to leave her, to end this before it even began, and to make it as harsh and cruel as possible. Maybe this just confirmed her selfishness once and for all, but seeing Joe kill Yuri Medvedev hadn’t rocked her nearly as much as this. As hearing him kill everything they’d shared leading up to it. “Only one of us is afraid, Joe. And that’s you. I’ve seen every part of you, and I’m still here, and that scares the hell out of you. Well, tough shit. I’m not walking away.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek. He stared at her, acknowledged her like she’d wanted him to just a few minutes ago, but his eyes were still hollow. “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. As if he had to force himself to speak. “If you won’t walk away…then I will.”
And he did just that. He turned and stalked off the playground, leaving all of them—leaving her—behind. Again.
Chapter 30
Neha was shaking. Not with tears but with fury. Nate didn’t know what to do for her. She’d long since shrugged off his comfort, pulled inward after Joe Peluso shoved his fear and his anger outward.
“I’ve got him,” Finn had assured quietly. “There’s a tracker sewn into the lining of my jacket, and I have the scent of his blood. Let me take care of this while you two take care of her.”
Grace, who’d tersely introduced herself to Nate as such when they were hustling out of the nightclub, had nodded along with her partner. “We’ll take her back to HQ and regroup from there.”
The vampire’s solemn demeanor had shifted for a second, back to his familiar flirtatious mien. “A group thing, eh? Look at you having all the fun without me.”
After everything they’d been through tonight, and with everything that was still ahead of them, Nate didn’t think he was still capable of blushing. Somehow, Finn’s light quip—and the accompanying thoroughly filthy look from him to Grace—had done the trick. He’d felt heated all the way to his toes. He couldn’t have said if Grace felt similarly warm, but her rail-straight posture had softened. So had her brisk tone. “Just be careful, Finian,” she’d sighed.
“Oh, Gracie darling, I’ve never been careful in my life. Why start now?” With one last saucy wink, Finn had gone off to follow Joe’s trail…giving leave for the rest of them to pile back into the SUV and head toward the city.
Neha kept her gaze averted, out the windows, and her hands clenched in tight fists on her lap. She’d only been gone a handful of days—not even a week—but it was like looking at a completely different woman than the one who’d worked alongside him at DGS. Not just because of the sparkly minidress and heels, or the messy hair she’d finally freed from a gaudy wig. That wig was somewhere in the back of the car now. Thrown there in a fit as she spat curses in multiple languages. Or maybe he was the one who’d changed. Today. Finally able to see everything around him for what it was. Everything Finn had wanted to show him. The reality of the different New Yorks that existed side by side. The reality of a coworker who was even tougher than he’d thought. The reality of vampires and werewolves and bear shifters, oh my! He’d defended supernatural clients, fought for supernatural rights just like he did for any other marginalized community, but tonight had opened his eyes in a different way. A far more personal way. Nate still wasn’t sure how to feel about the chaos and the bloodshed. He just knew that what he’d seen couldn’t be unseen. What he knew now couldn’t be unknown.
The tricked-out SUV’s comm crackled, breaking into the uneasy silence and his equally uneasy thoughts. “Echo Three, are you secure?” a male voice demanded.
“Aye, Echo Base,” the driver, a white Australian operative named Mack, affirmed. “Go ahead.”
Whoever was running the show at Echo Base, or Third Shift HQ as it more likely was, didn’t waste any time. His no-nonsense voice came over the speakers like the rat-a-tat of a machine gun. “Bad news. Anton Sokolov intercepted Danny on his way to Brooklyn. From our surveillance, we know Sokolov’s got both him and Yulia squirreled away at another location in the borough. Holding him for Vasiliev. Joaquin should have it pinpointed shortly.”
Aleksei Vasiliev had fled Kamchatka during the crush, almost as soon as things got out of hand. Not sorry enough about his prizefighter’s unexpected demise to stick around and do anything about it. Nate had spotted him vaulting from the VIP area in bear form along with a couple of his cronies. He assumed Third Shift had eyes on the man. Bear. Bear-man. Whatever.
“Do you want us to return to base or spin our wheels until we have the new site locked down?” Grace asked her boss.
Driving all the way to the west side of Manhattan if the threat was deep in Brooklyn didn’t make much sense. They would just have to turn around and come back. Preferably after a bathroom break and a quick change of clothes. Not that they needed Nate’s input on any of this. It was a first for him—keeping his mouth shut, letting others run the show. He’d always prided himself on being one of the smartest people in the room. On his and D’s ability to out-lawyer lesser mortals. That didn’t quite work when you were surrounded by superior mortals.
“HQ is too far. Impractical,” the voice on the comm said. “Proceed to Safe House 13 and await further intel. Echo Base out.”
Grace and Mack conferred quietly for a few minutes. They’d already turned the SUV off the Belt Parkway and headed north, but now they were looping back around. Getting back on the parkway. Wherever Safe House 13 was, it was obviously closer than Hell’s Kitchen. Nate itched to call Dustin. To tell him what was going on, even though that was wildly irresponsible and would only drag D into a mess he was better left on the outside of. He just needed someone he understood and who understood him. Someone who wouldn’t shut him out.
“You can stop staring a hole into the back of my head, Nate. I’m fine.”
Neha’s knee knocked into his. Her dark eyes, no longer fixed out the window, measured his with a mix of humor and sadness. When he arched his eyebrows at her in disbelief, she chuckled. “Okay, I’m pissed. Embarrassed. Probably a little self-loathing. But I am fine.”
It was just enough of the truth to offset the lie. Nate still wasn’t going to let her off the hook. “How can you even say that after everything you’ve been through?” Because he wasn’t the one who’d been shot at, gone on the run with a wanted man, gotten intimate with said man, and then been dumped by said man in public, and he wasn’t feeling fine. All he wanted was a stiff drink and a sympathetic ear.
Neha glanced up at Grace before looking back at him. “Because, right now, we don’t have any other choice,” she pointed out in a matter-of-fact tone. “You heard that call, Nate. Yulia Vasilieva put her safety on the line for me, and now she’s in trouble. We have to help her. I can’t afford to fall apart.”
“There will be no falling apart for anyone,” Grace agreed dryly from the front seat. “There’s no time for that. Pencil a meltdown in for next Tuesday, because we don’t have time to brief more of our own people on this…which means you two are invaluable assets and honorary Third Shift agents.”
Oh, joy. Just what he’d always wanted. Safe House 13 awaited them in their immediate future, and Nate didn’t feel remotely safe at all.
* * *
He’d imagined being close to Yulia thousands of times. Fantasized about finally feeling her body against his in the dark. Not like this. Never like this. Chained together back-to-back in metal chairs with zip ties around their wrists, immobilizing their hands. It wasn’t Danny’s idea of a romantic night out—certainly hadn’t been what he anticipated when he left Third Shift HQ and headed downtown. And that had been a grave tactical error on his part. Proving why he was more rookie desk jockey at 3S than he was active operative. Proving that Elijah had been right to keep him on the bench. Because they’d known Anton Sokolo
v had dropped off the grid after being caught on surveillance footage in Queens. He’d stalked Joe Peluso and Neha Ahluwalia just long enough to bag one of his quarry…and then moved on to corralling new targets. And Danny hadn’t considered that possibility.
He was a bird shifter of some kind. He’d flown above the drones. Danny only knew this because the guy had bragged while dragging him into the back of a van like all the old-school stranger-danger warnings. “You humans and your technology. God gave me wings,” Sokolov had boasted. Danny said something to the effect of “Yeah, and God gave you a mouth so you could put a sock in it.” And then he woke up a while later in this warehouse with a splitting headache and a sore jaw. At least two of his teeth were loose in his mouth.
They’d brought Yulia in sometime after that. Struggling. Snarling. A beautiful, raging princess in a sparkly cocktail dress…who’d become a raging bear princess in scraps of a sparkly cocktail dress right before his very eyes. Sokolov and a few additional goons had moved quickly, jabbing her with a hypodermic filled with some kind of sedative. She was still out now. He could feel her head lolling against his, the deadweight of her still limbs. She’d reverted to human form while unconscious. Sokolov had emerged from another section of the warehouse with a hooded sweatshirt. And though Danny hadn’t been able to see him do it, he’d gathered that the bird shifter had made sure Yulia was at least clothed again.
Aleksei Vasiliev’s men were very, very afraid of pissing him off. That should’ve made Danny afraid, too, but he was strangely calm. Stuck in a chair watching the metaphorical clock tick until the big man showed up, he did what he did best. He analyzed, he researched, he weighed options and went over the facts as he knew them.
By now, Third Shift knew he’d been grabbed. They likely also knew that the Vasilievs were bear shifters—something they hadn’t had visual confirmation on before, no matter how good their surveillance. Since Danny and Yulia were here, the probability was high that things had gone south with Peluso at Kamchatka and the organization needed leverage and another way to show their strength. Kidnapping a NYPD detective right off the street was a mark in the “win” column—again, Elijah had been right. Danny had proven to be a liability. Taking Yulia, too…well, he could only guess it was about teaching her a lesson in family loyalty.
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